Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Vincent Browne Shut the feck up

Yet again Vincent Browne is going on about how the media is not doing enough about inequality

In the coming election campaign, not a single newspaper, radio station nor television station among the mainstream media will campaign for a radical restructuring of Irish society to achieve a far greater level of equality than exists

The report stated: "Excluding social transfers [ such as unemployment benefits, child benefits and pensions], the risk of poverty rate would have been close to 40 per cent [ of the total population]". The report states that, without social transfers, nearly all old people (87 per cent) would be at risk of poverty.

The realisation that two in five people in this massively wealthy society are dependent on social welfare payments to keep them out of the "at-risk poverty" bracket, and that nearly all old people here would be at risk of poverty were it not for social welfare payments, is shocking

Why are you highlighting Excluding social transfers surely that is what you want more of?

How many times do I have to go on about "at-risk of poverty" and how it is a made up figure. See this is why we need more people doing science in this country. So people can look at statistics not the actuall scare headlines that go with them but the actually numbers and how they are calculated. And see that being "at-risk of poverty" does not mean you are poor or even in danger of being poor it means that statistical your income is 60% of the median.
The median can be quiet high (and in Ireland it is) and in other countries quiet low (as Germany) thus the amount of money to put you at risk of poverty in Ireland in Germany means you are not at risk of poverty. Even someone with less money in their pocket in Germany (even taking into account cost of living) then someone in Ireland can be considered not poor but the person in Ireland could be "at-risk of poverty". How does that make any sense.